First speech-to-text app for phones launched

Android and iPhone users will soon be able to talk text messages directly to their phones, according to the firm behind the first voice-powered text prediction application for mobile phones.

A beta version of TravellingWave’s VoicePredict app has been launched, which enables Windows Mobile users to enter text messages by simply speaking the words into their mobile phone’s microphone. Well, sort of.

The app isn’t quite clever enough for you to ditch the keypad just yet, because it also requires users to type “one or two letter key presses per word”.

A video demo on the firm’s website suggests that the app simply puts word on the screen by matching your spoken word with those in its virtual dictionary. When it comes across an unfamiliar word, the app will ask you either to select it from a list of possible matches, or physically type it in.

Nonetheless, TravellingWave claimed that preliminary trials of the app found its word choices to be 95 per cent accurate.

VoicePredict also results in a 75 per cent reduction in the number of key presses on a handset with Qwerty keypad and 80 per cent faster insertion of symbols or contact names, the firm claimed.

Background noise is filtered out using special algorithms, it added.

Android and iPhone versions of VoicePredict will be available in “early 2010”, while the Windows Mobile version is available to download online now. ®